


Anonymous Picture

by tracinginthesand



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: 1930s, Bohemians, Genderbending, M/M, Makeup, Original Character(s), Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, West Village, bucky as canvas, bucky in eyeliner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-31
Updated: 2014-08-31
Packaged: 2018-02-15 14:01:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,178
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2231703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tracinginthesand/pseuds/tracinginthesand
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky might have come home, but there's always something new to learn.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anonymous Picture

Before Bucky came home, while Steve and Sam were still trying to find him, Tony wrote a computer program to trawl the internet, searching for his face. It took no time to set up and never found anything useful, and they all forgot about it until an alert comes up on one of Tony’s screens. He clicks it expecting a paparazzi shot. What opens takes his breath away. 

It’s a photograph from a BuzzFeed list of presumably gay men from the first half of the twentieth century, and he immediately sees why the editors or whoever chose it. The caption says that the photographer and the subject are unknown, but it’s dated 1936. 

A young man, an old boy, sitting on a steamer trunk, elbows resting on his thighs. His arms are loose, he isn’t wearing a shirt, looking up at the photographer with such a smile on his face. Thrilled. Carefree. Maybe a little bit shy, but laughing over it. Wet hair curls loose over his forehead. His skin is damp, it shimmers a little in the black and white. There is smoke in the air, there is a party going on behind him, through a doorway, bodies in motion, some laughing faces, but the photograph is all foreground. 

He’s made up like a doll. His eyes are pale and liquid, outlined in black kohl until they eat up his face. A person could hide under his cheekbones. Mascara layered on the lashes he’s looking up through, and his mouth. Painted in some deep red, because his smile is a dark slash on his face, a perfect bow. Just slightly smudged, like someone took their thumb and stuck it in that mouth, pulling out just a touch too careless and ruining the line. That’s what takes it from being a work of art to an obscenity. 

Tony doesn’t look away when he grabs his tablet and messages Natasha and Clint. When they get to the workshop and see what he’s looking at, they understand. Narrowed eyes and crossed arms, tilting their heads this way and that. Stretching their understanding of this person they have come to love with fierce certainty.

It’s a nineteen-year-old Bucky Barnes. Grinning and laughing with makeup on his face. The fact of it doesn't bother them, but it represents another part of Bucky that none of them ever knew. When Steve wanders by, the thud of his hand hitting the doorframe jars them all. He’s staring, pale, like he’s been hit with something. They stare at him staring. The idea that Steve didn't know about this never occurred to them in the first place.

Steve leaves the room, blinking, breathing hard. He knew about Bucky’s uncle, knew that Bucky would visit and stay out there. He knew there were parties and visits to art shops, because Bucky came back hungover and with supplies for him. But other than that, they didn’t talk about it much. Steve didn’t want to pry. Bucky’s parents didn’t like it, would try and ground him, but no power in the world would stop Bucky doing what he wanted except Steve. And maybe that’s why he didn’t talk to him. Didn't want Steve to tell him not to go. 

He understands, but he feels hurt, maybe more hurt now than he'd been then. Because Bucky looked so relaxed in that picture. So like himself, all energy and understanding his attractiveness in ways Steve never did and still doesn't. 

Bucky and Sam get home from their op late that night, and Steve waits until they’re alone. Brings up the image on his tablet. Shows it to Bucky and watches his face go blank, then nervous, and wistful. 

“That wasn’t the first time,” Steve says. It’s not a question. Bucky shakes his head, slowly, still fascinated by the smiling mouth, the eyes all scrunched up from laughing. 

“Did you like it? Was it just some joke?”

“Guess I liked the attention. They told me how pretty I was.”

Something kicks low in Steve’s stomach. It’s guilt. It’s interest.

“How’d it happen?”

“Queen named Jeannie.” He squeezes his eyes shut like he always does when he’s remembering something that doesn’t hurt. “She loved it. Told me I looked like a girl.” That kick again, deep in Steve's belly. Tangling around all the times he was called a girl, a fairy, a little guy. All the times he was told _My sister can hit harder’n you._

“You liked being called a girl?”

Bucky gets that slightest flush on his cheekbones, a flush Steve hasn’t seen in eighty years. “I loved it,” he whispered. “You know how it was. I had three little sisters to protect. I was a fighter. A bruiser. And you.” He looks up, apologetic. “You needed me to be strong.”

Steve ignores the twist in his chest. “So you liked being something else for a while.”

Bucky nods. “I’d get passed around. Sat on their laps, told how good I looked, pretty little thing like me. They asked me where my fella was, what I let him do to me, good girl like me. Just joking around. They knew it got me goin’, though.” He swallows. Steve’s face is hard and his eyes are dark. 

“What’d you let them do?” 

“Just a little kissing when my uncle was out of the room. They touched me some. Never got my pants off, I told them my fella wouldn’t like it.”

Steve imagines Bucky, leaner and narrower without Steve around to loom over, fey and gasping in someone’s lap. A hand wandering too far, and Bucky shaking his head, no matter how much he might want it. Catching a wrist in the same hand that became a fist to slam into anyone who looked at his best friend cross-ways. Except it’s long-fingered, almost elegant as he sees it in that smoky room. Steve doesn’t have to guess who his fella was, who Bucky was thinking of when he said it. Possessive pride rushes through him. He watches Bucky’s face, the way he’s holding his lower lip in his teeth. Watching Steve, so careful. So afraid. His heart aches in his chest, but he doesn’t move. 

“You liked it. Getting made up like a dame. Called a girl. Held on some guy’s lap. Belonging to your fella back in Brooklyn.” 

Bucky nods. There’s no point in lying about it. Steve can feel something shifting between them, tectonic and delicate, all at once. “Stay there,” he says. 

Bucky starts breathing hard. The memories are overwhelming, but mostly it’s that Steve is leaving him alone. He never wanted Steve to think he was a freak. That’s why he never told him in the first place, and now Steve knows. 

But when Steve comes back, he’s holding a couple of charcoal drawing pencils and a black oil stick. Bucky catches his breath. His shoulders go back a little bit, robbed of their tension by the considering arousal on Steve's face. 

“You’re full of surprises, Rogers.”

“Wouldn’t want to let my best girl down, now would I?”


End file.
